Song for Early Spring

The third-shift
road crews
were chieftans
on the lakeshore
in the early black,

their efforts
and their pathways
dim flames licking
shoulders on
remembered Dan Ryan
in early spring;

and the sacrificial flare stacks
were torchlight
alongside bogs;

the chill that spilled
around and inside ears
in the sudden still
when stopped doorways
opened up
near unfamiliar
intersections.

And the messages that
ballast gave
through shoes gone thin
and yard limit signs

Risen up like skinned sentries
and things
that were only their
shadows
in the dawn

Were fanned
and embered
and pocketed
and unseen.

3-16-14

My lengths and
shadows
are exhausted,

and
lifted up to You
on hills
with every filthy
March that I can bear;

with stick
and
branch
and ballast
gathered
from among grand
trunks,

and toes raised
beneath embers.

Didn't You fill Yourself
with inexplicable dusk?

Didn't You
displace
darknesses, and silences,
In answer?

You looked away,

And stained the years
with
long acres
of safety glass
woven among
fossilized corn
stalks.

You pulled up Your words

And left me,
my deserving it,
underneath
the years you
wrote upon my face.

Weird Tales

"In the snow. The ways
Traced beneath branches
In the bath of that
Weird light. Around dusk."

His voice was vibrant,
A smile shared freely
In a wind-chilled night
Among vagrant friends.

But the words fell thick
To the forest floor.
Certain old moments
Pushed through surfaces.

Someone pulled a stick
Through the jungle fire,
Stirring spark, ember.
Hands gathered collars.

Sudden quiet came
Uninvited, spare.
The fields near the tracks
Inhaled the night air.

Eyes pulled themselves up
Around the treetops:
The silence went thin;
The cup went unpassed.

"I know you heard it.
Before this, I mean."
And of course they had.
Every one of them.

Old Passed-Track stood up,
Eyed the ensemble.
"You think I'm a fool?"
Nobody answered.

"Well. I won't go on."
The leaves in the trees
Above them groaned, sighed.
"I will not," he said.

A long stillness passed.
At last, one man stood.
"You know you got to."
He kicked at the fire.

Passed-Track's shoulders slumped.
He drew a sharp breath.
"This ain't the story
I wanted to tell."

"We know," someone said.
"But you'll tell it well.
And your miles are earned
As well as any."

So the night went long,
And the fire was fed,
And Passed-Track remained,
Pressed to small hours.

Near dawn, the sky spun
Suddenly, in one,
Quick, fluid motion,
The stars quivering.

Passed-Track settled up
The story's remnants
As knowing chuckles
Passed around the fire.

And in the distance,
A steam-backed whistle
Breached the horizon.
The ground shook that way.

A westbound hot-shot
On a north-laid track;
A sudden exit
From a long, slow curve.

The moments settled.
Gear was gathered up.
Someone poured coffee
On the dawn-lit coals.

At last, a young voice
Broke the solemn still:
"What a night it was!
I am reminded

"Of a certain tale
I know I've been told,
but that is somehow
shrouded to my mind.

"Before we catch out,
I'd like to share it,
Although, only now,
As I speak, it forms:

"In the snow. The ways
Traced beneath branches
In the bath of that
Weird light. Around dusk."

Remembering

Beginnings
And the rest of lives
Have been always
Spiraling
Misspoken tonguefuls to me;

Boots, but worse — half-legs —
Muddied and mumbled
In the hall.

A thin light
Of late comeuppance
I once could tell —
Alone, near shore-shows —
That my hands could come around

When I went arriving,
Big as dawn,

And gunmen bled guns
In entranceways of towns
Embarrassed by graineries.

The good life
Is an ember-lined
Circle,
Unmapped

And recollecting.

Near

All those bends —
Years and lamp-lit low clouds
Pouring out of you,
Fold over fold,
A glory;

The way you raised up trees
Beside my staggering path.

The way you hid,
And stayed,

Unmoving, and
Wrung me dry of
The hopes
You yourself authored
In me.

You were always
Emptying branches
And horizons;

Pulling
Blankets of cold distraction
From around my wrists and ears
And neck,

Pushing me
With ticks
And thickets
To the coasts of things.